CMF 80 PG loud noise ... normal?

[laska]

I'm a real newbie and don't want to mess around with a gas furnace without some advice.

We have a 1984 skyline with a CMF 80 PG furnace. It's our first year living here and I have no experience.

Today it started getting colder. I opened up the furnace closet. The instructions in the closet said something about lighting a pilot. I found an online manual at

http://www.nordyne.com/Literature/708062b.pdf

This says the pilot lights automatically. But our unit's main gas valve has a "pilot" setting in addition to "on" and "off," which is confusing.

Following the instructions in the manual, I turned on the main gas valve leading into the closet and turned the gas valve on the furnace to on, following the safety procedures in the manual. I then turned the thermostat on and set the temp above ambient air temp.

After about 20 seconds, the furnace starting making a loud motor sound. It didn't sound normal, but I don't know what "normal" is. I let it go for about 30 seconds, but could sense no heat from the outside of the closet and the blower did not come on. Not knowing what I am doing, I thought it safest to shot the whole thing off, so I turned off the thermostat, opened up the closet, and shot off all the gas valves.

During the summer when I was not here, the blower came on by itself, which freaked my wife out a bit. But I remember hearing this was a normal self-maintenance feature of the device.

Any help would be hugely appreciated. Basically, I have no idea what I am doing.

[laska]

So looking through old posts to this forum, I now understand that the burner motor needs to run for a bit before the furnace ignites, have I got this right? But how long should that take and is it normal for the burner motor to make a very noticeable loud sound?

[laska]

Well, go the pilot light lit and furnace seems to be working normally here.

You seem like nice people -- hope I can come back to ask questions if I ever need to fix it. I know you didn't mean to snub me, but were perplexed by the idiocy of my question.

Where I grew up, we heated with wood stoves and cut our own wood. We even cooked with a wood stove until I was ten. Never had to mess around with furnaces.

[Robert]

Hi,

Nope, didn't snub you for any reason. Was out of office recovering from a wisdom tooth removal which didn't go well due to health issues that I have.


Glad you got it working though without getting hurt.

When it comes to gas, IF you need to ask questions, best to back away until you receive answers.


Gas, especially if it is propane, is very unforgiving.


Thanks,
Robert

[laska]

Thanks, Robert. Hope you recover quickly from having your wisdom teeth out. I've heard it is very unpleasant.

I'm going to buy one of those gas detectors today to make sure we don't have any leaks, but I've sniffed around close to the floor and don't smell anything. When I realized that is normal for the burner motor to make some noise and it was just a matter of lighting the pilot, I gave it a shot. Furnace seems to be working fine, but I hope I can ask questions if I need to adjust it. However, I wonder if our burner motor might be getting a little old. This is a great resource. It's kind of you to share your knowledge with so many people.

I hate gas, though I suppose if you follow good safety procedures it is probably as safe as anything else. I just heard about the San Bruno thing yesterday. What a tragedy. We have a Dominion station about two miles from here near Dryden, New York. What do they call them? Tansmission station? It just got enlarged. We weren't here, but a lot of people were up in arms about it. You can hear the thing over a half mile away.

[laska]

We're natural gas here.

[Robert]

Nat. gas is safer than LP. Test all joints with soap bubble solution for leaks.


You're very welcome, happy to help.



Thanks,
Robert